


This hole we keep falling into

by marshmallowfluff



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Brothers refusing to talk about their feelings, Concerned Sam, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Hell Dean, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Sam, Season/Series 04, Season/Series 05, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-10 03:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3275573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marshmallowfluff/pseuds/marshmallowfluff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's this hole that they're right at the edge of. They keep climbing out and then sliding back in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This hole we keep falling into

Sam brushed his bangs out of his eyes and heaved a massive sigh. "This is hopeless."

"Nothing is hopeless, Sammy," Dean comforted. He reached over into the first-aid kit that was resting on the bed next to him and pulled out the pair of medical scissors, holding them out to his brother with faux-sympathy turning up his eyebrows. "You don't have to suffer through it forever."

Sam stared at him in confusion. The corners of Dean's lips twitched up. "Just a trim and it can all be over." He gestured vaguely towards Sam's forehead, at the floppy bangs that he'd been brushing aside for the past half hour. 

"Really, Dean?" Sam asked, pursing his lips and raising his eyebrows. Dean grinned. 

"Bitch-face me all you like, you'll give in eventually," he jeered. "There comes a point where a man's hair is simply too long, little brother, and you passed it a good three inches ago."

"The ancient Greeks were fierce warriors and they had hair as long as mine," Sam pointed out, reaching out to lift the firearms from their duffel. He laid them out on the rickety motel table. 

"They also enjoyed poking their dicks in other men's asses. You're not doing too well on your not-gay defense, Sam."

Sam rolled his eyes and unwrapped the polishing cloth from around their bottle of gun oil. "You never said anything about my hair being gay."

"You're right. Your hair's way too long to be gay. It's full-on girly, man."

"How about you let go of your combined sexism/homophobia for a couple minutes and sharpen the knives?"

"If you insist, Samantha," Dean agreed airily, waving his wrist in a noncommittal gesture and putting the scissors back in the kit, tugging out of the duffel that lay on the floor in front of him the leather strop they used for sharpening their assortment of various knives, daggers, and the occasion machete. His first selection to sharpen was his own silver knife, the one he kept under his pillow at night. 

Sam turned his chair slightly so that his back was angled to Dean, starting on cleaning and polishing one of the sawed-offs. Dean set about dragging the blade he held up and down the strop, holding the leather firmly in place with on hand, the other end held still under the heavy step of his steel-toed boot. 

"Has Bobby called with another case yet?" asked Dean, focusing on relaxing into the easy drag-slide-drag of running the knife up and down the sharpening leather. He glanced up to see one of Sam's shoulders lift in a shrug. 

"He called with a couple. Poltergeist up north and a creature southeast. The poltergeist is closer but the creature apparently has a higher mortality rate."

"We got any contacts nearby?" He lifted the silver away from the strop and blew on it, a light sheen of dust separating from the gleaming metal in a puff. He ran his thumb along the flat of the blade before putting it back to the strop for another couple strokes. "Someone to take one of 'em?"

"Bobby said Tim might be just a few hours out, but he hasn't picked up yet."

Dean huffed a laugh. "T-Bone? Really? That bastard's still kicking?" He shook his head ruefully. "Tell me, you know if he's still convinced that black dogs can be domesticated?"

Chuckling, Sam put the sawed-off aside and picked up the Beretta to clean next. "Last I heard, he's got three in a kennel in his backyard, fenced in with silver chicken wire and salt licks. Apparently they can 'sit' and 'roll over', but try to get them to 'shake' and you're liable to lose a hand."

"Yeah, I'll bet." Dean lowered the edge of the blade to his wrist and drew it across the delicate skin with a swift movement. It cut clean, no drag or resistance, and after a moment blood welled up over the lips of the incision and spilled down his arm. He nodded and wiped the blade off on his shirt, setting it aside and reaching for the dagger that went in Sam's boot sheath. "Dumb fucker's gonna end up kibbles 'n' bits one day."

"Still a damn good beast-hunter though," Sam granted, and Dean heard him pop the slide out of his .45. 

"Dude, don't smudge the grips, I keep that ivory fresh," warned Dean. 

"Dean, I know how to clean your damn M1911. I barely have to do anything anyway, you clean the thing practically hourly. I don't think it could stick if you tried."

Dean curled his lip and slouched onto one knee with exaggerated, slovenly pride. Pointing at Sam with Sam's own dagger, he nodded and raised one eyebrow. "You take notes, Sammy-boy, you take them to heart. That's the only way to treat a gun right."

With a final stroke across the strop, he brought the dagger to his wrist just above the first cut with similar results. Nodding in satisfaction, he cleaned the blade again and set it next to his knife. 

"Yeah, but the question here is, do you think you're taking care of a gun or a girl?" Sam scoffed. "Because I don't think that gentle caresses and quiet encouragement are necessary steps in gun care and maintenance, Dean."

"And that's where you go wrong," Dean nodded. The throwing knives were next. He wiped the blood from his arm casually on his pant leg and shook his wrist out a bit. "See, guns are like girls, Sammy. You're not gonna get anywhere by just shoving emery cloth up the barrel and rubbing around a bit. You gotta be gentle and attentive. Be aware of her needs. How wide are her tubes? Does she respond more to quick strokes or slow movements? Listen to what her body's telling you. Use your fingers and your wrist, not your elbow. Add appropriate lubrication. Do it right, and she'll be so well done that she'll go off in your hands with the barest tap of a finger when you're ready."

He glanced up at his brother with a grin, setting aside the first throwing knife as more blood gathered on the pale skin of his forearm. Sam laughed in disbelief. 

"That was the most vivid metaphor I've ever heard," he said, flicking his bangs out of his face and turning his head around slightly to face Dean with a grin. "I'm not sure if you were teaching me how to clean a gun or give a girl a..." With a sudden clatter, he stood in one fluid movement, the chair he'd been sitting in rocketing back and toppling over behind him. Dean jumped and tensed as Sam suddenly towered over him, broad shoulders and wide, dark chest casting a shadow over him that seemed to be trying to swallow him up. "Dean, _what are you doing!"_  

Big hands wrapped around his wrists, forcing him to drop the second throwing knife and turn his palms outward and up, fingers curling slightly and the lines in the palms of his hands etched deep like canyons, cavernous and dark and open to catch streams of red. 

Blood was squeezed out of the incisions in his flesh and trailed down the sides of his arm, staining Sam's hand bright. Dean's hands were shaking, fingers twitching in a rhythm of curl-uncurl-curl-uncurl that made him wonder why he couldn't feel the familiar creaks of badly-healed broken bones that he usually dealt with when moving his outer digits. 

" _Dean_ ," a voice tugged him from his wondering, "What the fuck are you _doing?_ "

"Testing the blades," he said plainly. His voice sounded oddly blank and dry. "To see if they're sharp enough."

"What the fuck?" Sam exclaimed, voice heavy with disbelief. "Why the fuck would you _do_ that?"

Dean's hands were shaking in Sam's grip. The blood and gristle coating the walls of the motel dripped repetitively, red pattering to the sloppy-red, marshy floor in a strangely comforting rhythm. 

"You told me to sharpen the blades," Dean answered, confusion coloring his tone. 

Sam let out a sharp laugh of disbelief that sounded almost like a sob. "Yeah, but normally this isn't a fucking step in the fucking chore, Dean!"

"I have to make sure they're sharp," he said, peering up into Sam's obsidian eyes, searching for any clue as to what he'd done wrong. As always, however, they were an indecipherable void of solid black.

"You don't have to fucking _cut_  yourself to do that, Dean!"

Dean looked around the cell with raised eyebrows as if to say, _Well, look around_. "It's not as if there's anyone else here to test them out on, Master." His voice was thick with sardonicism.

It was as if Sam had been shocked. The force with which he let go of Dean's wrists pulled painfully on the incisions he'd cut there, and Sam stumbled backwards, staring at Dean with a mix of horror and disgust. He raised his shaking hands and used his palms to brush his bangs out of his face, leaving a streak of Dean's blood across his forehead and upper cheek. 

"What did you call me?" he said with strained calm, voice trembling just slightly on the interrogative. 

"Master?" Dean answered, somewhat alarmed. 

"That's not my name, Dean," replied Sam, voice heavily controlled. 

"Alast-" suddenly, something cleared in Dean's eyes and his face paled, lips tingeing purple around the edges. "Sam," he croaked, voice gravelly, as though well-used. He blinked and looked down at his arms and open palms, immediately reaching over into the first-aid kit to grab a square of gauze and clamping it over his bleeding arm. He looked around the room, the bright, gaudy, yellow motel room that wasn't painted with blood, nor decorated with rusty nails draped in entrails. 

"Sorry, man," he forced through leaden lips with a dry tongue. "I just... Sometimes I just, uh, flash back, you know? It just, it gets..."

"Triggered?" asked Sam, sounding pained. Dean nodded jerkily. 

"It doesn't happen that often," he said hurriedly, "And it's not normally this... this... this," he lamely finished. 

"So you don't normally take a knife to you wrists and cut them bloody," Sam deadpanned. 

Dean forced a shaky, crooked grin and shrugged. "You make it sound so bad, Sammy."

"Dean, what I just saw? That was pretty fucking disturbing." 

Dean shifted defensively, turning his shoulder slightly towards his brother. "I got it under control. I told you, shit like that never happens."

"How many times have you flashed back around me without me knowing, Dean? Just a couple? More than that?"

"It's none of your fucking business!" Dean snapped, lifting the cloth from his arm to examine his injuries. The bleeding had slowed down, but red still oozed sluggishly out of the cuts. He clamped the cloth back down.

"You slashed your fucking wrists because you thought you were... thought I was..!"

"I don't make you talk about your fucking detoxes, you can't fucking make me talk about this. You got that, Sammy? It's done. I'm fine. Don't even need stitches. We've still got the rest of the guns and knives to clean and a hunt to plan, okay? Just drop it."

Sam stood there, staring down at his brother, hands clenching uselessly around nothing and lips flattening together irately. Dean stared defiantly at the ground, one hand wrapped around his wrist, cords working his his neck as he clenched his jaw. 

"Fine," Sam forced through gritted teeth. "You take the guns, _I'll_ sharpen the fucking knives."

Dean nodded curtly and stood from the bed, moving over to the table and the .45 Sam hadn't finished cleaning. "Whatever."

Sam watched him for a moment as Dean took the brush to slide down the barrel, cleaning it carefully and ignoring Sam, the bloody gauze set on the table next to him. After a minute, Sam sat on the bed, the knives that already lay on the scratchy comforter clacking along each other's blades as the mattress caved and bounced. He picked up one of their machetes and slammed his boot down on one end of the strop before gripping the other and beginning to slide the blade up and down, up and down. 

The brothers worked for half an hour in a silence laden with frustration and biting admonishments. Then, with an upstroke, Sam slid the knife he was holding too far and nicked his finger. 

"Shit!" he cursed silently, dropping the strop and sticking his index finger in his mouth, sucking. He withdrew it to examine the damage. 

"Maybe if your hair was a little shorter you could actually see what you're doing," Dean said from the table. "It's a problem that can be easily fixed." He lifted his hand, fist closed and index and middle fingers out like he was throwing down in Rock-paper-scissors, and made a snipping gesture against his own forehead. 

"Fuck you, Dean," Sam said, but Dean just grinned and went back to his work. 

"Sorry, Samantha, but I like my ladies with a little more curves and a little less facial hair. Plus, the bitch-face is kind of a turn-off."

Sam threw a rag at Dean that he easily caught and returned, landing it across Sam's face. 

"You're incorrigible," Sam stated. 

"I'm adorable," Dean countered. 

"You're hopeless," Sam volleyed. 

"Hopelessly adorable," Dean grinned. 

"Nothing is hopeless, Dean," said Sam mockingly, and Dean's face softened a bit, his smile close-lipped. 

"Yeah. Nothing."

He returned to the guns, cuts glistening and stretching on his forearm. After a moment, Sam returned to the knives, the tang of iron on his lips. 


End file.
